


Carry My Heart

by the_seaworthy_muffin



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Destiny, M/M, Memory Loss, Post-Episode: s05e13 The Diamond of the Day, Promises, Reunions, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:16:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27915877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_seaworthy_muffin/pseuds/the_seaworthy_muffin
Summary: “Keep it for me, Arthur. We will meet again. I’ll make sure of it.”No. No, no, no.Merlin’s lips meet his, hot and salty with tears, dry and chapped and trembling. He breathes, and Arthur feels the magic flowing between them, Merlin’s lifeblood, his essence, his heart.When Arthur comes to, he feels magic pooled hot and liquid against his bones.Merlin is nowhere to be seen.‘Wait for me. Promise you’ll wait for me.‘Arthur does.Or: A tale of grief, yearning, and how a Warlock found his way back home.
Relationships: Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Comments: 31
Kudos: 144





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I realized I love writing sad things (which, honestly, I ought to have realized when I found myself writing angsty AU after AU featuring Legolas back in high school......) - so. But there is a happy ending, and it is very very happy, I promise.
> 
> UPDATE 2021.01.19: Now with a new title, an edited summary, and an added epilogue. This really is one of my (favorite) things I've ever written- so r&r, please? :D Though it's your choice, truly; hope you do enjoy the read. Carry on, sir knights!

They call him the Miracle King.

Perhaps it seems like a miracle, to them; the golden glitter of his eyes, the warm power that coils like liquid fire in his gut. He heals with his hand, they say, and the other calls lightning from the sky. Perhaps.

But Arthur knows that it is nothing, compared to the one who has given this to him. He has felt it, scintillating bright and brilliant, the entire world breathing in tandem with the man, the being, who had somehow thought him worthy enough to tear his very heart out for.

Arthur knows ─ but no-one else does.

So Arthur nods, smiles, serves Camelot the best that he can, and waits.

Waits. Because he has a promise to keep.

∞

“Oh,” Gwen comments, soft, as she dips down to touch a finger to a soft blossom that has wormed its way through the thick cobblestones of the courtyard. The wan winter sun washes her in a low, melancholy light, pale lemon glistening like silver thread against her dark skin. “Look, Arthur; a flower.”

“Yes, I see.” Arthur bends down, too, and his cloak flutters like a pennant behind him, red as blood, red as the sacrifice that has brought them all here.

How much sorrow they have all seen, for every joy to be tinged with sadness.

Arthur cups his hand before him, breathes into it, letting the magic under his safe-keeping flow soft and tingling past his lips. The fragile flower straightens, its delicate white petals spreading as if struggling towards the sun, and Gwen gasps in wonder. Amazement.

“Beautiful,” she whispers, and her eyes sheen with unshed tears.

She is looking at Arthur, but Arthur knows he is not where her gaze is aimed. Arthur remembers a grave, noble countenance, gentle and quick to laughter, that slender straight-backed gait that no knight of Camelot had ever been able to match. He remembers a man who had looked at Gwen as if she had hung the very stars in the sky, and knows that Gwen thinks of him too.

Athur, too, remembers. But the thoughts that fill his mind are of someone else's.

A power that could shake the very Earth, contained in a shell so fragile and fey. Loyalty that could move the seas, gone, now, farther even than the farthest shores of yore.

He feels the pulse of magic in his veins, the last shard of one who had sacrificed himself in his stead, knowing, always knowing, that it could never hold a candle to the real thing. To─

No. Arthur cannot speak his name yet. Will not.

The King and Queen of Camelot stand, side by side, as the brisk winter breeze buffets their fine cloaks and stirs their hair anew. They do not speak.

∞

“You don’t laugh as much anymore, Sire,” Percival says, in that slow, sure way of his, and his eyes hurt more than any enemy’s dagger ever has.

“Is that a bad thing?” Arthur asks, and the smile that stretches his mouth is pure pain and posion, broken glass stretching over fractured leather.

He won’t ever laugh like he had, again. Not until he sees the sparkling blue eyes crinkle in a smile as a familiar voice calls out to him─ _Took you long enough, dollop-head. Have you been much of a prat while I’d been gone?_

He will see it. He promised. He can wait.

He can wait.

Percival doesn’t call him out again after that.

∞

He is feared, Arthur can tell that much. People tread lightly around him- they are wary of his brittle temper, his mood that changes faster than the capricious winds of spring. A snippet of a whisper, here, the tail of a murmur, hastily caught up and muffled, there. _He_ _─_ _the Sorcerer King_ _─_ _enchanted_ _─_ _insane_ _─_

 _Now shush, lest we be caught_ _─_ _some fates are worse than death......_

But not Leon. Never Leon. The tall, steadfast knight has seen Arthur toddling in diapers, has seen Arthur break down and call for his mother in the middle of the knight, rocking him on his lap and murmuring soft nothings to him. Leon still treats him like the prat of a king he is, and that, Arthur thinks, may well be the last thing that tethers him to sanity.

∞

“There’s been reports, sire.”

“Leon,” Arthur drawls, “There are always reports.” He spins the wine-glass he’s been holding, idly, and feels the weight shift as the wine flows in a small flurry, lets the coolness of the metal seep into his skin. “I daresay that isn’t anything new.”

Leon gives Arthur a look that says he knows what Arthur is up to─ and doesn’t approve of it.

“Sire,” Leon says, again, “there’s been reports. Of a boy- man- who could perform Miracles.”

Arthur narrows his eyes. “They say that about me, too.”

“But we both know it’s anything but. You have your limits, sire; as does any other.”

“And this one doesn’t?”

“They say he’s brought an injured bird back to life.”

“Injured.” A pause. “I’d daresay I could manage that as well.”

“But not a dead one.”

Hope rises, swift and strong, and Arthur quashes it down before it can grow further and tear him apart from the inside. His grip on his wine-glass tightens, fingers almost showing white.

“Leon. You know better than to─” Arthur bites of his tirade with a hiss. “Leave me.”

Leon’s eyes meet his. “No.”

“Leon.” Arthur gathers his magic- no, never his, but Merlin’s, _Merlin’s_ , that Arthur will keep safe unto his very death. Arthur feels the air crackle with the power, nothing compared to the warlock’s and yet still awe-inspiring, bringing the scent of a gathering storm with it. Leon does not flinch. “ _Leave me._ ”

“No.”

“Leon.” Voice low, deadly, and very dangerously on the verge of breaking.

“My liege was not a coward. He would have gone, had there been even the slightest chance there would be that which he would seek. He would have gone.”

“I’m not _him,_ ” Arthur whispers, and turns his head to hide the lone tear that makes its way down his cheek. The fireplace gives out a soft pop, then crackle, and dies down. Leon strides closer, Arthur feels his shadow drape over him, the soft touch of calloused hand upon his shoulder. “No, sire,” Leon says, “You are stronger. And you will go.”

Arthur knows that he will. And it destroys him.

He lays his head down upon his trusted knight’s shoulder, and weeps.

∞

They ride out the day after. Athur and Leon, the two of them.

The weight of absence _aches._

∞

It’s a two days’ ride to where Leon had said the reports had come in from. Arthur and Leon ride in near-complete silence, the faint scree of a falcon from high above the only sound to break the melancholy, and Arthur’s mind drifts while his body eases into the familiar clop-clopping rhythm of the horses’ hooves.

Pain. Regret. Hope. Despair. It all mixes into a chaotic funnel inside Arthur’s body, and he pushes it all down, down, where he can’t see, can’t feel. Leon’s horse draws parallel to his.

“Tell me about him, Sire.”

Arthur bites his lip, measuredly nonchalant. “You’ll have to tell me who _he_ is, then, because I have no idea.”

“Merlin.”

Something breaks inside of Arthur, then, and he grips the reins so hard that his horse gives a startled whinny and prances sideways a few steps. Electricity arces across his skin, still so strange, still so foreign, even after almost- an year.

 _It had been easier than breathing for_ him, Arthur thinks. _For Merlin._

Arthur’s labored breaths as his wound drained him of the last strength he had. Pained blue eyes, golden in the gleam of the firelight, wet with a sheen of tears neither of them had been quite ready to acknowledge.

Arthur pretends not to have heard.

“Tell me about Merlin, Sire,” Leon says, again. His eyes aren’t condescending, or pitying, or cruel. Calm. Stoic. “Tell me.”

Arthur does.

∞

_Merlin’s laugh is something special. Arthur has seen many laughs over the years he has lived: courtiers’ coy, calculated smiles, red lips hiding behind the rustle of silken gloves, the knights’ boisterous laughter, his father’s, thin and wan, rarer even than the glimpse of a rainbow behind clouds._

_Merlin’s, when he laughs, is clear and true, high and ringing, and the very Earth seems to listen._

_Merlin wades through the short grass just outside the citadel, Arthur’s picnic-bag in hand, grumbling and grousing about how a certain royal prat can’t even be arsed to carry is own food in his strong muscular arms. His drawl is almost insouciant, tone bordering on treasonous and yet filled with thinly veiled affection- some nobles might have had him flogged, for less, but Arthur doesn’t. Won’t. Can’t._

_Heaven knows how that idiot’s wormed his way into Arthur’s notoriously guarded heart, with those wide blue eyes and laughing cheekbones of his. Bumbling fool that he is._

_The grass rustles behind him, butterflies blue and red and yellow springing from his steps, and Arthur points at him, laughing, telling Merlin he’s such a girl even the butterflies know. Merlin groans, throws his hands up in exasperation. A tuft of dark hair sticks up edgewise from his head, swaying a little in the faint breeze._

_“One day, I’ll be gone, and you’ll be sorry,” Merlin mutters._

_“Be quiet and go to sleep. You’re ruining the mood.”_

_“One of these days_ _……_ _”_

.

Merlin was right.

But Arthur can’t tell him, anymore.

∞

They arrive at the village near nightfall.

It’s small and quiet, the exact kind of village where Arthur expects the largest event of the year may well be the fall harvest, a few children running about in the empty fields, thatched roofs hunkered down against the brisk winter breeze. Something fey seems to be alight in the air, setting the ends of Arthur’s nerves afire, soft hairs rising prickling at the nape of his neck, and Arthur takes in a deep breath, holds it. Treacherous hope comes to life yet again somewhere deep inside him. It brushes against the jagged edges of his heart, and it _hurts_ like sandpaper against an open wound.

They do not enter the village, Arthur opting to set up camp near the forest just outside it instead, and if Leon notices his stalling he doesn’t call him out on it. Arthur sets a merry campfire going with a flick of his wrist, and together, they chew on dry meat and watch the sun go over the trees in a blinding swirl of red.

∞

“You’ve broken the stem,” a voice says from behind him. It’s achingly familiar, and Arthur spins, hand reaching instinctively for his sword. Magic rises tentative in his veins, thick and reluctant like molasses, dragging against Arthur’s will. It _tugs_ at him, and Arthur sways, the heady dizziness almost too much to bear.

 _Tugs_ , like a compass reaching for true North.

Long, pale fingers reach out, taking the flower from Arthur’s limp grasp, caressing it like a mother might a child. Golden sparks flow like a stream, and the flower is whole again, petals blooming with a pale sheen like the moon.

_They say he can perform Miracles._

_Dead bird- back to life._

The moon peeks out from behind its bank of clouds, and in its pale, silver-white light, Arthur sees a tall, slender form, clumsy and yet somehow graceful, blue eyes, glittering fey and carefree, the curve of full, generous mouth as it slides into a smile so familiar it _aches_.

“You’re not real,” Arthur whispers. “You’re─ not.”

“Of course I’m real, don’t be silly.” Oh, that voice. That _voice_. “Though I’m not so sure about yourself. There’s something familiar about you─ do I know you? You’ll have to pardon me, my memories are all jumbled up since I woke up……”

“Merlin.” Arthur is kneeling now, long cloak trailing into the dirt, hot tears flowing down his cheek, and he knows he ought to be ashamed, he ought to, but he can’t. His hands clench at the ground, scrabbling helplessly at clumps of soft dark dirt and stone and leaves, at white pale snow that stings and melts between his fingers. His lips tremble, no, he must be dreaming, he must. “ _Merlin._ ”

“Oh─ don’t cry.” The boy- Merlin- kneels down at once, tugging Arthur into an awkward embrace. “Did I do something to offend you? Don’t cry, here, look.”

Merlin stretches out his hand, and a small golden dragon comes to life on his palm, prancing jauntily in a circle before going out in a puff of stray sparks. “See? Something nice to look at.”

Arthur remembers another dragon, another time, in a different forest…… _For you, Arthur. Always for you_. Arthur crushes this Merlin to him like he’s his lifeline, this Merlin that doesn’t even remember his own name, and cries, and cries, and cries, as the moon inches its way over the sky and the wind rustles above him like a prayer.

_Wait for me._

He did.

He won’t ever let go again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please drop a comment if you've enjoyed- I'd love to hear what you thought!  
> Next chapter should be up sometime within the next week, but I cannot make promises, as I have about a million exams and papers to write and I may be reduced to an incoherent pile of gloop by the end of it. :O


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Merlin comes back to Arthur.

He takes Merlin back with him to the campsite.

“I don’t really mind, you know,” Merlin says. “I woke up near here, one day, no inkling of who I was, what I was doing there─ the villagers were kind, really, to take a loner boy like me in…… but don’t you think I ought to get a reason why I should just, you know, go with you?”

Goodness, Merlin still babbles as much as he used to. Even more, maybe. It shouldn’t be anything that makes one want to cry, not by any means, but Arthur bites his lip, blinking away the moisture that threatens to pool at his eyes. He can see Merlin wincing in he edge of his vision.

“Sorry. That came out wrong. I mean, you could be a serial killer for all I know─ _sorry_!” Merlin wrings his hands. “Sorry, I’m totally babbling now. I guess I do that sometimes. I’ll just be quiet and follow you.”

Arthur pauses. “I don’t want to force you, you know.” It would destroy him if Merlin doesn’t want to come with him, not when he made Arthur promise, not when he made Arthur live out those treacherous days that made the sunny sky look grey just for the lack of one to share that joy with. Not when he made Arthur _wait_.

But he will accept, and come back, and back, and back, until Merlin laughs at him like he used to, love and loyalty and destiny and gentle teasing all rolled into one, and calls him by his name again.

Merlin shakes his head, mouth stretching into a sheepish grin that pulls more towards one side than the other. “It’s alright. You’re not forcing anything. I’m actually pretty capable of making decisions on my own.”

Arthur arches a brow. “You are.”

“Oi! I’ll have you know─ but, really, it's alright. It likes you.”

“It?”

“My magic.” Merlin laughs. “I don’t know why, really. You look a bit like a prat.” That gentle teasing, so familiar that Arthur almost turns in expectation to find himself back in Camelot, his manservant by his side, dancing away as if from Arthur’s imagined retaliation, ridiculous neckerchief knocked askew from their horseplay. “But I’ve learned to trust it.”

Wind rustles through the boughs above them, and this Merlin doesn’t have a neckerchief, has no idea of who exactly he’s teasing, dressed in simple loose trousers and a tunic with sleeves that stretch way past the tips of his fingers. A peek of a pale collarbone, glinting in the filtered light of the moon.

But it’s alright.

It is.

∞

Leon chokes over his breakfast when Arthur emerges out of the forest, Merlin in tow. “Am I─ sire, tell me I’m not dreaming.”

“You tell _me_ that.” Arthur sighs, sitting himself down on a log. The night before is catching up to him, now: his trousers are wet from when he’d collapsed upon the snow, his neck seems to be swollen shut, eyes hot and stinging from where he’d broken down and weeped like a maiden. “Merlin, this is Leon. My knight. Leon, Merlin. He doesn’t remember who you are.”

“Goodness. I’ll say.” Leon blinks, frozen in place. “Goodness.”

Merlin takes a tentative step forward. “Ought I know you? You seem familiar. Almost─” he shakes his head. “Though, you said- your knight? Are you some lord or something?”

“My name,” Arthur says, “is Arthur Pendragon.”

“Yes?”

“You don’t recognize- something?”

“ _No._ ” Merlin turns towards him, the irritated flash of his blue, blue eyes almost like something Arthur has yearned for all his life. “You’ll have to _tell_ me, you know. Say, if I said my name was─ Tom, or Ben, would you light up and say, ‘Oh, the miller!’ No, yes? See, there. That doesn’t make any sense.”

Arthur blinks. It must be the snow. Getting in his eyes, making them all hot and prickly.

“That’s because you’re an idiot.”

“Hey!”

Leon shifts on his log. Arthur holds his breath, then lets it out, breaking the spell of the moment.

“My name is Arthur Pendragon,” he whispers, “King of Camelot. And you were my manservant.”

Merlin’s eyes widen in shock, then soften. Something akin to recognition linger behind his eyes, then it’s whisked away like morning mist under sunlight, and he blinks.

“Really?”

_No_ , Arthur thinks, _you were so much more than that_. But he doesn’t say that out loud.

∞

“I still can’t believe I used to be a manservant,” Merlin complains, over the soft clop of the horses’ hooves. “That I was yours, even more so.”

“I’ll have you know anyone in the castle would have been honored to be my manservant,” Arthur sniffs, and behind them, Leon laughs. Merlin turns toward him, a teasing slant to his mouth. “Oh, I don’t know. You do look like a bit of a prat.”

“I’d have put you in the stocks for that!”

“See? Prat.” Merlin grins a little, tongue sticking out of the side of his mouth. He’s riding with Leon, because Arthur can’t bear to let him out of his sight, and for all that he wants to touch, to wind his hands into his flesh and make sure he’s really _there_ , Arthur’s emotions are such a mess that he knows it won’t be a good idea to.

Arthur sticks his tongue right back out, like the child he hasn’t been for ages, and Merlin laughs, flailing a little as he almost unhorses himself in his mirth. A soft breeze comes up, cushioning Merlin’s near-fall and righting the boy, and Merlin turns his head up, smiling as sunlight glints golden off his eyes.

_Miracle_ , Arthur thinks.

All the people who call him the Miracle king- when all along, here us the real miracle, the true wonder.

Arthur shakes his head and laughs along, and pushes down the faint pang in his heart.

∞

There’s something about this Merlin that makes Arthur want to laugh and cry all at once.

He’s so innocent, so _pure_ , and it reminds Arthur so forcefully of all that Camelot has taken from Merlin, this laughing, exuberant creature, that he wants to turn away and weep. As they dismount to cross a small stream, Merlin twirls his fingers and makes a cascade of water twist off of the surface in a glittering burst of bubbles, happy and joyous and _free_. He douses Arthur with it, later, and Arthur retaliates by grabbing the boy in a headlock and dunking him in the stream. Leon grumbles good-naturedly as he brings out the spare clothes they’d packed (I _knew_ you’d need them, Sire, what did I say) and gives Arthur a fond glance when he thinks nobody is looking.

But he’s not _Arthur’s_ Merlin, either, and Arthur his caught up by a sentiment even he can’t understand- he misses Merlin, when he stands right before him. He misses the quiet camaraderie of ten years’ memories shared, the way a single look could convey a dozen words or more. At night, by the campfire, Arthur deliberately brushes his fingers against Merlin’s, _I’m sorry, I miss you,_ and something deeper that Arthur isn’t quite ready to say.

Athur’s Merlin would have understood.

This Merlin turns towards him, that achingly familiar tilt to his head, and Arthur bites his lip until he tastes blood. “Nothing.”

Merlin shakes his head, fond, and turns back toward the roast pheasant turning over the fire.

This Merlin tells Arthur he _likes_ him, and Arthur wants to laugh and cry and rage and scream.

He doesn’t.

∞

_“You’re not going to die. I won’t let you.”_

_Arthur laughs, though it breaks off into a croaking cough somewhere in-between. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he says. It’s a strange feeling, the sensation of life seeping out of his limbs. Arthur feels heavy and light all at once, as if there’s a vast echoing cavern somewhere in his head and he’s in it, rising up towards that pinprick of light near the top. “Only you, Merlin_ _……_ _”_

_“I won’t.” Those familiar, laughing features, twisted into a mask of anguish, guilt, regret. Arthur wants to reach up, smooth those lines from that face_ _─_ _he doesn’t regret, much. He’s left behind a legacy of his own, the seedlings of peace and hope. The Saxons are vanquished, and they will not return for many years yet._

_Gwen, though. And- Merlin._

I wish I hadn’t had to leave you alone.

_“Even with your-” Athur pauses, breathing harshly. It’s ridiculous, how hard it still is, to push those words past his lips. “gifts, Merlin. Some things aren’t meant to be done. It’s time.” Another pause. “I accept.”_

_“Of all the times to lie back and give up-” Merlin buries his face in his arms, breaking off into a sob. “No, Arthur._ No _. I won’t permit it.”_

_Merlin lays Arthur down onto the ground, sprigs of grass still wet with dew. Arthur sees a lone white blossom out of the edge of his eye, wonders absentmindedly if it would smell as fresh as it looks._

_“Here,” Merlin says, and there’s something final about his eyes, something very much like a goodbye. Arthur tries to struggle up, dread creeping up his limbs, lending them a final bout of strength, but gentle fingers press him back into the grass. “I give you part of myself. Keep it well.”_

_“I don’t_ _─_ _”_

_“Hush.” Arthur struggles, tries to yell, something, anything, but all that escapes his mouth is a strangled, gurgling gasp. Merlin’s eyes water, face twisting with some unidentifiable emotion, and a lone tear lands hot and wet upon Arthur’s cheek._

_“Keep it for me, Arthur. We will meet again. I’ll make sure of it.”_

_No._ No, no, no.

_Merlin’s lips meet his, hot and salty with tears, dry and chapped and trembling. He_ breathes _, and Arthur feels the magic flowing between them, Merlin’s lifeblood, his essence,_ his heart.

_When Arthur comes to, he feels magic pooled hot and liquid against his bones._

_Merlin is nowhere to be seen._

Wait for me. Promise you’ll wait for me.

_Arthur does._

∞

They ride into Camelot the following day. Gueneviere, who’s rushed out to see Arthur home, gasps and covers her mouth with her hand at the third figure seated behind Leon. “Arthur- my Lord, is that-”

“Yes.” Arthur dismounts, massaging the fatigue out of his tired legs. “Merlin, meet Gueneviere. Gwen, meet Merlin- he doesn’t seem to remember you.” His voice cracks the slightest bit in the end, and he feels Merlin flinch out of the corner of his eye. He turns, guilty.

Gueneviere has no such qualms.

“Oh, Merlin,” she whispers, disbelieving. “Is it really you?”

“I-” Merlin turns, blue eyes wide and confused. “Arthur says so,” is what he decides on. “At least, he tells me I’m Merlin, and I’m probably your Merlin if he can recognize me-”

It’s that patented ramble only Merlin could ever have pulled off, and his words are broken off as Gueneviere crushes him into a tearful embrace.

“Oh, Merlin. You’re back. _Merlin._ ”

People pause in the courtyard to stare, servants bearing rolls of cloth and trays of food, nobles heading off to carry out their daily business. Gueneviere’s tears are loud and messy, far more so than a queen’s ever should, but they see the familiar tousle of dark hair, the slim, lanky form, and avert their eyes.

Merlin had always been well-loved by everyone.

“Shhh,” Merlin shushes, hand coming up to rest between Gueneviere’s shoulder-blades. “Shhh. Don’t cry. I- I’m back, aren’t I? I’m not leaving. Promise; I won’t ever leave again.”

Gueneviere’s tears don’t stop, though, and Arthur knows then that she’s crying also for another who will never return- a love, long lost, that is not he.

Something hollow threatens to break off inside his heart, but then he sees Merlin, here again, limned in gold by the midday sun, long neck pale without its neckerchief, awkward and warm and caring all in one─

He cannot quite bring himself to weep.

∞

Gaius whispers a single word: _My boy_ , and then collapses onto his chair, as if afraid to touch Merlin should he evaporate like mist.

“I’m real,” Merlin says, the slightest hoarseness to his voice, and there’s a light in his eyes that may have been the barest spark of recognition, some remnant of that deep familiar love that had once flowed between them. “Look.”

Merlin’s pale fingers brush against Gaius’ aged skin, wrinkled and thin like the rolls of parchment he loves so, and Gaius lets out a long, shuddering breath, grasping Merlin’s fingers in his and closing his eyes. The lids tremble, and after a long, torturous moment, Arthur sees a single hot tear glint in the wan light as it slides down his cheek.

This time, Merlin cries, too, and Arthur turns away.

∞

Merlin settles into life at Camelot as if he’d never been gone in the first place. He’s as horrible a manservant as he’s ever been, and he trips over his own feet more often than not, and when he smiles innocent and light Arthur can’t help but be reminded of just how far those gruelling years by his side had changed that bright, joyous soul.

He uses magic to do Arthur’s bed-sheets and calls him a dollop-head and a prat and blooms flowers out of the cracks of Arthur’s room whenever he is feeling happy.

“I think you’re alright,” he says, with that sly, sideways smile that somehow ends up more endearing than coy. Long black lashes fluttering spidery on those pale, sculpted cheekbones. _I trust you, I believe in you, I like you,_ Arthur hears, and then smothers the moisture that rises unbidden to his eyes.

But Merlin does not remember him.

∞

“It- hurts, you know,” Merlin says one night. Arthur shifts in his sheets, turning to see Merlin with his head hung down, firelight sending long shadows flickering over the hollows of his cheeks.

“Hurts?” Arthur asks, because he would do anything, _anything,_ to never hear that word come from Merlin’s newly-innocent lips ever again.

“Everyone treats me like I’m this person they know, you know,” Merlin says, playing with golden sparks that spring from his fingertips like faeries come to play. “Like I- ought to know, to understand, to- to be this _Merlin_ I’m not. And I can’t remember, Arthur. I try, I _try_ , but it’s so, so empty.”

And Arthur aches, too.

Wordless, he rises from the bed and kneels before Merlin in his nightclothes, stretching out a palm. He calls forth the magic that lives within him now, the magic Merlin had given him for safe-keeping, the magic that Merlin even now cannot remember to claim.

He lets his love and hurt and sorrow and regret bloom upon his palm, _I’m sorry_ and _come back_ and _I cannot live without you_. He puts it all to show, this new _him_ that Merlin has crafted, laid out for Merlin to take, take as he will, because all that is Arthur Merlin has made, All that is Arthur is _Merlin’s, Merlin’s, Merlin’s_.

Merlin’s eyes widen, glinting golden-blue in the light of the fire.

His lips part.

“Oh,” he whispers. “Arthur. It’s beautiful.”

∞

Weeks pass. Months. It’s almost been a year now since Merlin has come back to Camelot, and Arthur has nearly given up hope, has begun to love his new, innocent Merlin in a way he’d never imagined he could.

It’s late at night, windows closed against the cold winter drafts, a low fire crackling merrily away in the stone-lined fireplace. Arthur reclines against his sheets, long absent of Gueneviere’s warmth (and no, Arthur does not blame her, for he knows better than anyone that the path one’s heart takes will not be dictated at whim) - drowsy, secure in the knowledge that his kingdom lies safe beyond these walls, that all is as right as could be in his world.

Then the door swings open, without a knock, and Arthur sees Merlin’s tall lithe form backlighted against the flickering torches of the corridor.

“ _Arthur_ ,” Merlin chokes out, almost falling into the room, and Arthur _knows_.

He is across the room in an instant.

Merlin has been crying, Arthur realizes; his lips taste like salt, like rainwater and Earth, like that tantalizing scent of lightning Artur has never tasted anywhere else. Arthur feels the magic in him breaking free of its bonds, rushing through his lips back into its rightful owner, singing _free, free, free_. Merlin gasps against him, fingers tightening against the fabric of his nightshirt, and with a jolt, small but sure, Arthur feels Merlin’s heart beginning to beat against his.

Whole again.

His. Only his.

Arthur squeezes his eyes shut, knowing that he won’t be able to stop weeping should he open them again, and lets his forehead drop to rest against Merlin’s shoulder.

“You asked me to wait,” Arthur whispers, broken. “You won’t imagine how long, how much- I did.” he chokes. “I did, Merlin. How long-”

His lower lip is trembling, the strength failing in his legs, and he hangs onto Merlin, onto the rough iron of his chamber door’s latch, as if it’s the very air he needs to breathe.

Merlin’s hands come up to cradle against the back of his head.

“Shhhh,” he whispers. “Shhh. It’s alright. I’m back, Arthur. I’m back.”

And he is.


	3. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A tender ending to wrap it all up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I typed something wrong on AO3 and all my notes were reset! There was such an abundance of them too... (wrings hands in frustration) Though really, the gist of it was that I love epilogues and I hoped you enjoy this too. So, please enjoy, and do drop by with a comment if you did- they never ever fail to make my day!  
> p.s. beware ctrl+shift+c - it aligns text to center in the world processor I use (한컴오피스 한글), but apparently in AO3 it has all manners of intriguing properties. I truly did surprise myself!

“Don’t you miss it?” Merlin asks, one night, as Arthur slides into the sheets beside Merlin.

Arthur has an inkling of what Merlin is asking him. It isn’t a subject he’s comfortable discussing, yet; the cracks from Merlin’s absence are still laid bare and healing. Arthur simply hums and plays the fool.

“It? You’ll have to tell me, you know. I can’t read minds, unlike someone I shall not name.”

Merlin snorts. “Told you it’s not _reading minds_ , you prat. Wait- those words sound familiar.”

“They may. I _am_ quoting a certain idiot, you see.”

“Why would you quote them if you thought they were an idiot?”

“Even fools have those rare sparks of wisdom......”

Realization flickers across Merlin’s face. His eyes widen in indignation, and Merlin smacks Arthur soundly with a pillow. “They’re my words, you dollop-head! Not long after I was...... back.”

Arthur catches the barest of hesitations. No surprise; it’s a touchy subject for them both. Some days, Arthur reaches for Merlin in the middle of the night, laying his palm flat against his sternum so he can feel his heartbeat. Afraid that Merlin may be a figment of his imagination, set to scatter into pieces the moment Arthur wakes.

Merlin hums a little, sheepish, and turns away to face Arthur’s window. A brief flicker of power has the bed-curtains drawn, candles snuffed, air warmed to the consistency of a spring meadow’s breeze; nevermind that it’s the middle of the winter.

Arthur lies on his side, letting his eyes wander over the pale curve of his warlock’s neck, the deceptive frailty of those slim, birdlike bones. Merlin doesn’t _look_ like a Court Warlock. It is almost impossible to discern the power that lies beneath from that pale, delicate skin, those cheerful eyes, those clever, gesticulating fingers. That was what Arthur’s councilmen had thought, and it had been three long, gruelling months before they finally conceded to Arthur’s demands. But Arthur doesn’t regret it at all.

Because Merlin, draped in ridiculous folds of velvet blue and gold, silly hat sitting jauntily on his mop of dark curls, still sometimes manages to look majestic, breathtaking, his. Manages to look _right_. And when Merlin happens to turn and smile at Arthur, Arthur always pretends to look the other way, and think-

_How long we have twisted and turned, just to find our ways home_.

But all is right with Arthur’s world, now, and he holds no regrets.

Merlin twitches a little, finally turning to face the canopy of the bed.

“But- Arthur, really. Don’t you miss it? The magic? Don’t you ever regret-”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Merlin,” Arthur hisses, threading his fingers through Merlin’s. Because yes, maybe, Arthur does miss the magic. It’s funny, the way it’s only eminent in its absence- it is emptiness where he had once been full, echoing coolness where there once was blazing warmth. Arthur misses the way the very world had seemed to be at his fingertips, the way his joy could bring flowers to bloom, his grief melting into stormy clouds and shivering drops of rain.

But it had been _wrong_ , that power that had not been his, and all of that will never, never compare with the wonder that is Merlin. Not until the day that he dies. Not even after.

“I have you,” Arthur says, letting the latter half die unsaid. But Merlin must have heard, understood, somehow, as he always does, because his breath hitches. And then a short, breathy exclamation: “ _Oh._ ”

“Idiot,” Arthur whispers, unbearably fond, and lets his warlock wash both their fears away.

_The End._


End file.
